WarlockAlan

Backgrounds

FBLA is the largest student charity organization with the longest history around the world. It holds different types of contests related to Business every year. Because of Covid-19, FBLA China only had the opportunity to hold one offline contest– Beijing Economics National Contest (Beijing is the capital of China). This article is written to share my experience of this contest.

Since I have already mentioned a lot about how I prepared for FBLA, I will not write any more about it in this article.

My feelings about offline/online contests

Tell you the truth, offline activities make me feel much more excited than online activities. During the offline activities, I could immerse in the academic atmosphere by talking with others face-to-face in a formal place like meeting room. Before taking part into this offline Beijing National Economics FBLA contest, I have already taken part in an online Business National FBLA Contest. Generally speaking, the event was boring. It was hard for you to meet competitive students all over the provinces in China. The application used for preparing online events even had bugs at that time. For the talent show, the FBLA
official had no choice but to ask students upload their talent show videos and played videos.

Contests

It had three parts, Economic fundamentals (multiple economics choices), further comprehension (reading reference to answer questions), thinking and innovation (teamwork to answer questions). You could take part in an academic meeting (community of inquiry) if you apply for it in advance.

However, though I have prepared a lot, I still couldn’t get awards. (I got 89 in fundamental and anyone who reached 90 was national top 20th. Besides, the situation was similar in the part further comprehension.)

Analysis–why I couldn’t get top 20th awards.

I have summarized some reasons after this contest. First, I was not good at English compared with other students in Grade 11. I was only in Grade 10, and it was hard to find students in Grade 10 to get national top 20th award. Besides, although I couldn’t get top 20th, I still got great scores, they showed my preparation was meaningful. (Actually, I got the greatest scores in my school and still exceeded the majority of students at that time.)
For teamwork to answer questions, I was poor in speaking and that was my fault. It must let our group get fewer scores. In addition, a few members in our group were not capable.

My future plan and feelings about this year’s FBLA Economic Contest

My future plan

I still have many chances in the future. After all, I am only a Grade 10 student. I only need to get a few more scores to reach top 20th so I will take part in this contest in the future. By the way, in the next year, students in Grade 10 would be busy applying for universities. In other words, they won’t take part in the FBLA in the next year. And I was nearly the top student in Grade 10 so I want to get top 5th in the next year, not simply an award for top 20th. Last but not least, my preparation this year could also be used in the next year.

My feelings

Obviously, I felt regretted and sad. “Why I couldn’t get one extra point to get national top 20th?” I had this thought from time to time. Anyway, I have experienced a lot during the FBLA Economics Contest. I have met a lot of competitive students and discussed with each other about our school lives and hobbies. We came from different cities so we also talked about them. In other words, I not only comprehended Economics further but also felt relaxed during the contest.

Extra event: Community of inquiry

I applied for this event in advance and got the opportunity to take part in it luckily. It was an event that we discussed with each other to show our ideas about a given topic. This year, there were two topics A and B.

You could see the two topics here according to the FBLA official guide.

And I chose the topic B.

Further introduction about Community of inquiry

1. Each topic had 5 teams. Each team had at most 10 members. (And our team had 7 members since the other three were absent)

2. There were three parts during the community of inquiry. In part A, each team had to make a powerpoint to express their ideas to experts. In part B, each team needed to choose a representative to ask other group questions about the powerpoint they made. In part C, each team needed to choose a representative to answer questions from experts.

3. Each part will be judged. The students who performed well in any part will get the award of outstanding contributor.

4. Each team had one hour to discuss freely and one hour to prepare for the powerpoint. You were allowed to speak both English and Chinese during the discussion but you couldn’t use Chinese in the powerpoint.

What our team did to prepare for the powerpoint in part A

Firstly, we discussed a lot and tried to find our common idea. Our topic was about monopoly in big technology corporations. We originally decided to show advantages and disadvantages of it. Then we found it was time-consuming because we only had three minutes to explain in part A. Next, we only enumerated the disadvantages of it. And made the entire powerpoint finally.

There were two stories during this process. First, when we decided to only show only disadvantages of monopoly in part A, our representative of part A was a bit worried. He said he was capable enough to show all advantages and disadvantages of monopoly. (He was right, he did well in speaking English and his TOEFL score was 115.) We thought the experts may not get the points from our powerpoint if he talked too much. But he still tried to mention advantages of monopoly and failed. Anyway, we still thanked for his effort and he performed well finally. From this experience, I knew we should know how to accept and reject.
Besides, when we made the powerpoint, we were surprised to the requirement of the powerpoint–the length-width ratio of the powerpoint should be 17:4. (Because the screen had this length-width ratio.) That was so tough to make a powerpoint with this length-width ratio. You nearly saw nothing when you tried to preview it with your own laptop.

In order to prepare for the powerpoint, the members of our team ate nothing for dinner!

What I did in part C

I was the representative for part C in our group. It was a tough part since the experts would ask you questions and you didn’t know the questions in advance. To prepare for it,(Actually, it was hard to prepare for it.）I reviewed a lot of knowledge about the monopoly and even drew a mind map.

During the part C, the expert asked us how to prevent monopoly. I answered this question about imposing anti-trust laws. I used an example, Standard Oil Company, which was a monopoly company in eighteen seventy and it was split into 34 regional oil companies by the US government.

Finally I got the award of Outstanding Contributor. I felt proud of it.

My feelings about being a representative

I originally thought I couldn’t be a representative for our group. I was poor in speaking English and all members were in Grade 11 except me. However, my group members encouraged me to do it, and I performed not badly!

Of course when I sat down in the seat on the stage, I felt nervous. When the expert asked us questions, I nearly forgot all economic knowledge. Anyway, I tried to calm down and show my own ideas at that time. I tried to make me feel relaxed by paying my attention to other things (distracting my attention to being an outstanding contributor). Tell you the truth, on the stage, I just thought the lamplight towards the stage was quite bright. And when P immersed in that atmosphere, I didn’t feel nervous any more.
This was quite a memorable experience, I strengthened my skills of speaking English, met many new friends and learned how to analyze practical questions by using Economic knowledge I had learned in class.

Here is a photo about our team at that time. I will remember this unforgettable experience. I hope I will meet them in the future although it is lowly possible.

What is CTB

China Thinks Big, with the initial CTB, is a contest which encourages students in Grade 10-12 to think independently or even innovate in the daily life. Each candidate needs to find 3-9 partners to be a team. The team has to choose two to three specific subjects and study in this field. It is worth mentioning that the team needs to submit essays and/or videos to be judged by experts every week.

Brief introduction of my team and me in CTB

What I did in my team

Our group had 7 members, all members except me were girls. CTB official guide asked us to choose a role in our team. We had 2 writers, 2 people to analyze, 2 researchers and a team leader. I was a researcher, that means I mainly needed to find bibliographies and reference on the Internet or in the libraries.

Why I chose this role

I seldom used my computer to study efficiently before CTB. I wanted to strengthen my abilities to search information by CTB.

Which topic did our team choose to do

Our team chose social science as the main subject, our topic was “The phenomenon that more youngsters have insomnia, why it happens and how to avoid it “

Why I chose our team

First, the majority of my members were my responsible classmates. We could have convenient communications and efficient teamwork to do the task.

Besides, I was a teenager, and our topic was to solve the problem of insomnia in teenagers. In my opinion, insomnia is a serious problem among the youngsters today, it will make us too tired to finish our work thus decreasing the productivity. I wanted to solve it.

Special events

Handing out questionnaires

In order to find precise data about the percentage of Chinese senior high students have insomnia, our team decided to make a questionnaire. We thought twice and finally made one with 10-30 multiple choices (students with insomnia needed to answer extra questions so it is a range of number of questions) since no one would like to answer statement questions.

Then we handed out it in our school, which had 3000 students, we got nearly 2300 effective questionnaires.

A funny story during questionnaire process

Our team leader printed sentences on the Internet to encourage insomnia people on the insomnia, each questionnaire has its own sentence.

I realized that we could reach interest innovation just in our daily life!

Video

As we performed well in online contest (I will mention it after this section) we reached the final national contest.
Before entering it, each team had to send a video to the official, it would be judged by experts and professors.
I made a brief presentation in the video as I read many references about insomnia, that means I could say some academic terms to show we are capable enough to do research.

Hard challenges from CTB– frequent deadlines

If you ask me what impressed me a lot during the CTB online course, i must reply you about the frequent deadlines. We submitted essays every week since deadline was once per week. You would be disqualified if you miss any deadline. One group of my classmates were even be disqualified by that!

What I have learned from it

I should obey all rules once they are told to me. I once think I could miss some deadlines until my classmates were disqualified.

In addition, we should finish our duty on time.

Achievement

This certificate shows we were excellent during online CTB contest and we had the chance to do the presentation in the national contest.

A quite big challenge to us–national contest

Backgrounds

All competitive groups which finished all deadlines could
access in the national contest.

That means unlike other contests, all teams here have responsible and adequate members, we have much more competitors compared with other contests.

What we did there

Each team needed to submit a video about their topic and feelings of taking part into CTB.

Besides, each team ought to choose 3-4 members to prepare for an online presentation. It would be judged by experts and professors.
But i needed to prepare for IELTS, that means I didn’t have enough spare time to do the presentation.

Final score

Actually, we didn’t get award in the national CTB contest. Absolutely we felt sad
for a while at that time, but then we remembered the interesting and meaningful experience during our CTB journey. We all felt happy at last.

###What I have learned from CTB

First, I knew how to communicate with others efficiently. We preferred face-to-face communication since we could identify whether or not others listen to others by eye contact. Previously, I tended to chat with others by social media, but I didn’t think if my communication was efficient at all!

Second, I knew how to manage my time wisely. CTB official gave us tasks every week during online contest, which took place between September and December, 2020. At that time, we had to deal with different school subjects. I developed the habit to make a to-do list at that time.

Third, I met different friends and widen my horizons there. Two girls were not my classmates, they were my classmates’ friends. They were good at different tasks, one was keen on analyzing, and the other did well in searching information. We undertook different tasks by efficient communication. In other words, we developed the ability to do the teamwork.

Finally, as the researcher, I read different books about insomnia, the most impressive one was The Sleep Revolution, with the author Arianna Huffington. During this process, I develop my skills of reading and extracting information. Besides, l acquired knowledges of avoiding insomnia. I used to be insomnia since the peer pressure was hectic, but I was much better now. My studying efficiency also increased and I got much higher scores at school than before.

an unforgettable experience for me

Backgrounds-What is FBLA

The Future Business Leader of America, with the initial FBLA, is an international contest of business and economics. It is the biggest charity organization of students all around the world, with over 100 years history. Each year, FBLA had its own contest, it would include different parts, such as Business Plan, Entrepreneurship and Economics.

What I did in FBLA

Exam at school

Students who wanted to take part in FBLA needed to do an exam. The questions in this exam were depends on the topic you chosen. I chose the topic Business Plan. The top three students at school would get the opportunity to access national FBLA exam.

I prepared a lot (I would mention it after this section) and got great scores. (Not only I could access national contest, but also the top 2% in the eastern China competition area.)

National exam

In national exam, each team would get question in advance to prepare for a presentation. It is worth mentioning that each team needed to use a powerpoint to support their presentation.

According to the official guide, the contents of powerpoint must contain business plans of setting up three different companies. Our team had three members, so we decided to split the powerpoint into three and each one made one business plan of his own company.

Mistakes during our presentation.

Truth to be told, because of Covid-19, our national FBLA contest was held online. When we did the presentation, because of the problem of the Internet, our powerpoint didn’t slide smoothly.

At that time, we were nervous. Then we calmed down and still performed well!

Final score

We achieved top 18th in China.

This is the certificate.

This is the medal. (Students from top 11th to top 20th all got this medal.)

What our team did to prepare for national exam

We were classmates and thus we could do the face-to-face communication every day. At first, we discussed with each other to make sure our companies were different types. Then we asked for our economic teachers’ help. (We had a FBLA club at school.) She advised our companies could have relationship between each other.

After a long-time discussion, we chose to write business plan of these three types companies: A company to produce clothes, a company to hold events and a company to combine sole traders/retailors and producers. The process of discussion was tough since we had different ideas. But generally speaking, we showed respect with each other.

When we finished our powerpoint, we also send it to our teacher and she helped us to change, delete or add contents. For example, one of our team members, Judy, she deleted a lot of contents as we had only totally seven minutes to do the presentation.

Last but not the least, we repeated reading our powerpoint together for many times to make sure we got high marks for coherence.

What I did to prepare for FBLA

To get high marks to access national contest

Each student got an official guide at that time. There were many past paper questions and I did the majority of them. I also review our economic books to master the concepts of economics.

To perform better in presentation

Tell you the truth, I was poor in speaking English, (By the way, my partners did well in it.) so I didn’t want to fall behind. I practiced a lot in my spare time. For example, I couldn’t speak complex years or percentages fluently at that time, so I repeated such numbers and even made hints on the powerpoint to avoid saying wrong words.

My feelings to take part in FBLA

I loved FBLA, mainly because I have learned a lot from FBLA. As I mentioned before, I strengthen my knowledge of economics/business and English speaking ability.

During the process of preparation, I also learned how to do efficient self-study. For example, I made to-do list or forced me to read at least 10 pages official guide. I used to play with my phone when I do self-study. Obviously, mobile phone distracted my attention. Thanks to my experience of attending FBLA, my productivity had increased a lot.

In addition, I learned to manage my time properly at that time. I guess I developed this habit because I was really busy at that time. The hectic pressure forced me to manage my time wisely.

Backgrounds

UKMT is the initial of United Kingdom Mathematics Trust, which is a Mathematic Contest aimed at encouraging students to practice and analyze Mathematics. 30 multiple choices are needed to be answered in UKMT.

My reasons to attend it and feelings

I am keen on learning Mathematics and doing well in analyzing and tackling practical problems in terms of Mathematics. When I heard of UKMT, I reckoned that it was a good opportunity for me to strengthen my fundamental mathematic skills in order to learn better in the future for further Mathematics. In addition to show my abilities in Mathematic field, I also wanted to learn about the style of Mathematic questions in countries except China. Tell you the truth, I have never done such kinds of questions since I was getting used to finish questions from China. Thanks to UKMT and my efforts, I got to know structures of exams in other countries.

I also found an interesting point through my experience of UKMT: Unlike exams in China, a student would lose points if he writes wrong answer in multiple choices in many foreign Mathematic exams. That means he couldn’t guess answers.

My preparation of UKMT and the final result

In order to achieved my goal of getting gold certificate, I previewed past papers and chose papers from 2015 to 2019 to practice, which was a process that quite brought benefits to me. I learned not only some specific ways to solve problems, but also the quality of being diligent. I wanted to give up from time to time when I prepared it. However, I insisted in completing it since it was my first time to contact foreign Mathematics questions (I really would like to achieve something in this field like characteristics of analyzing or certificates of contests, so I spent one hour doing related questions during that period)

I finally achieved gold certificate. (I got 103 out of 125, while the requirement for gold certificate was getting 86 points.)
However, I did some mistakes because I was daydreaming at that time, I wish I could do it in 2021 and get higher scores (maybe 120, nearly full marks)

Backgrounds–what is the dragon boat race

Dragon boat race is a kind of traditional race in China. In a dragon boat race, team and team compete with each other and each team requires 22 paddlers and a drummer. Dragon boat is a boat looks like a dragon, I guess it is very famous among the Chinese people because dragon is the spirit of brave, victory and other positive characteristics (Totally different compared with Western culture, Western people usually think dragon is evil). There are so many evidences to show the Chinese people love dragon boat. There is a traditional festival called Dragon Boat Festival in China, students have even a three-day-holiday at that time. In addition, the Chinese people always call themselves the descendants of the dragon.

Why I could get the opportunity to take part in the dragon boat race

Since dragon boat is a part of Chinese traditional culture, Nanjing (my city) Education Sector held an race to encourage teenagers to experience dragon boat. There were five teams in our Nanjing senior high school group. I took part in this race, mainly because I wanted to experience the dragon boat race. As I have mentioned before, a dragon boat team needs 22 paddlers and a drummer. In other words, I couldn’t do that unless I took part in this race.

What we did to prepare for the race

We did extra curriculum about using paddles in our spare time. All such curriculum were organized by our school. It held nearly 14 lessons and each student had to attend at least 10 of them. (One lesson was nearly one hour.) During the lesson, we learned how to use proper ways to hold paddles at first. Then we did the exercise about the most important part: coordination. We needed to use the paddles with the same frequency so that our force could be maximum. This process was really tough since individuals had their own styles (because they had different body sizes) to use paddles. Whenever I hold the paddle, I paid my quality attention to others so I could adjust their way of using paddles. The process was exhausting, I always felt overwhelmed after training. Anyway, I enjoyed this process of teamwork.

The situation of race and our final scores

Obviously, we paid more attention during the race. All of us were hard-working enough to use the paddles and the sprays spattered in all directions. The noise of sprays was even louder than the sound from the drummer. I felt that we would have different frequency of using paddles because we couldn’t hear the directives from the drummer during the race. That may make us lose this game so I said “one, two, one, two” to make our coordination better.

Finally, we won the first prize. The Nanjing Education Sector gave us certificate and medals which made us feel pride.

My feelings

I thought this experience was meaningful, not only we got the first prize, but also the process of coordination and teamwork. As classmates, we had common experience of practicing together, which helped me to make friends. We developed the skills of cooperation by practicing together for a long time, which boosted our further cooperation of doing the project at school in the future.

In addition, I kept fit by taking part in this race. As a kind of water sports, it brought benefits to me. Tell you the truth, I was slightly overweight. And my body was much stronger after the training. Dragon boat culture is also a kind of traditional culture, I was glad to promote it to the public.

By the way, the teacher said it was clever enough for me to say numbers”1” and “2” as directives during the race. I was surprised that he said I had the gift to be a leader. Actually, this event would be a starter for me to be a leader in the future.